This Sunday's Parade Magazine contained this article on schools falling apart. The obvious question to ask is, why is it tolerable to neglect valuable capital assets like buildings? Failure to maintain and repair school buildings is malfeasance. With the huge sums of money spent on public education, there is no excuse at all to allow school buildings to fall apart.
The only reason school boards allow this is because they know that they can tell a sob story, run a bond election, and pry even more money out of the pockets of taxpayers.
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THE ABC’s OF SCHOOL MAKEOVERS
The average public school in this country is more than 40 years old—and showing its age. Roofs leak, walls are ridden with termites and lead paint, and rooms are chronically overcrowded. PARADE looks at two communities that remade their schools—and the lessons they can teach all of us.
Written by Barry Yeoman
JUST A FEW years ago, California’s Santa Ana High School looked like it had long outlived its art deco grandeur. The 1935 building was dilapidated, overcrowded, and scarred with graffi ti. Roofs leaked. Sewage backed up in pipes. Some buildings had no mechanical ventilation. The wiring was in “various levels of dysfunction,” says assistant superintendent Joe Dixon. “Computers would go down. Lighting would go down. In the few places where we had air- conditioning, that would go down.” In one building, makeshift classroom partitions forced teachers to shout over one another’s lessons. (What kind of leadership would allow this to happen? Isn't this irresponsible?)
Between the noise and the heat, “it was hard to focus on my work,” says Elvis Carranza, 16, an incoming senior at Santa Ana. “It made me not want to go to school at all.” What’s more, 34 portable buildings (i.e., trailers) had turned parts of the campus into a labyrinth— surrounded by chainlink fencing that, in Dixon’s words, “made it look like if you could get in, you were never going to get out.”
The sad truth is, Santa Ana High was like thousands of other schools across the United States. Talk of fixing American education tends to focus on teacher retention, test scores, and graduation rates—but we often overlook an equally serious problem: crumbling, antiquated facilities that are hostile to learning and depressing to to the the children and teachers who spend many of their waking hours there.
An estimated 40 percent of the nation’s 100,000 public schools are in “bad to poor condition,” according to Glen Earthman, Ed.D., a professor emeritus of educational administration at Virginia rg Tech in Blacksburg, Va. (Nothing short of criminal to run these facilities into the ground without taking proper care of them)
Today, the average U.S. public school is over 40 years old. The 21st Century School Fund, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for healthy and safe learning environments , calculates that it would take $271 billion to bring all of those buildings up to a decent standard. (So tell us, what has happened to the many billions of dollars spent on public schools? What has the Department of Education been doing? Where is the money going?)
But some communities have taken matters into their own hands to fund the improvements their kids need. Here are two such success stories. FOR PEOPLE in Santa Ana, a city of more than 300,000 located 30 miles south of Los Angeles, the second-rate school facilities were unacceptable. Many residents are immigrants; they often work multiple jobs and share bedrooms in overcrowded apartments.Twenty-eight percent of the city’s children live in poverty. Yet Santa Ana’s parents have ambitious dreams for their kids.
“They want us to do better,” says Carranza, one of five children of a Mexican-born seamstress. His mother, who as a child often walked past the schoolhouse in her village near Santa María del Oro, Jalisco, but never set foot inside, vowed that her own children would have more opportunity. “My mama always told me that the reason she came here,” he says, “was so we could make something of ourselves.”
Raising taxes (Ah yes, the default solution. The first choice and only choice of Leftists. You will note this is the only remedy offered in the entire article. But there is no correlation whatsoever between expenditures and quality of education, test scores, or graduation rates)
would not be easy in a city that in 2004 was ranked No. 1 for “urban hardship” by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. But in 2008, Santa Ana residents voted two to one for a $200 million bond issue that would improve the city’s 56 public schools.The resulting property-tax increase—less than $100 per year for a modest house—meant collective belt tightening. (Does the Left ever get tired of its antiquated rhetoric? "Gee, it's only $100. Tighten your belt, it's for the children. What are you, cheap?")
“We saw parents picking up recyclables just to make ends meet,” says Maria Cante, the high school’s community and family outreach liaison. But relatively few complained, she says—they knew that better schools would give their children a surer shot at higher education. (Notice the only party that actually cuts back and makes sacrifices is the taxpayer. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year on public education, they still want more.
TOTAL EXPENDITURES FOR ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE U.S.1 (dollars in billions)
2012-2013 2013-2014
Source of Funds by Level Dollars Percent Dollars Percent
Federal ........................... $76.0 11.4% $78.0 11.4%
State ............................... 277.0 41.3 284.0 41.4
Local ................................ 257.0 38.4 264.0 38.5
All Other......................... 59.0 8.9 60.0 8.8
Total.............................. 669.0 100.0 686.0 100.0
Notice the total public school spending for the 2013-2014 fiscal year is expected to be $686 BILLION dollars. 49.8 million students will be enrolled in public schools. Let's do the math. That's an average of $13,775 per student per year! That's $344,000 for a single classroom! That money is going somewhere, and until where is discovered, no more tax increases!)
More than $40 million went to overhauling Santa Ana High, one of the district’s neediest schools, an effort that was completed over the past three years. Among many improvements, the auditorium was renovated seat by seat, with high tech lighting and sound added. (Community groups now use the auditorium and other school facilities year-round.) Workers tore down fences and laid an elegant promenade to help make the entrance more inviting. Assistant superintendent Dixon secured an additional $41 million from the state, including an overcrowding relief grant to help replace the trailers with a two-story classroom building. With more than an acre reclaimed, Santa Ana High once again resembled a true campus.
Visit that campus today and you’ll see young dancers rehearsing in a sun-drenched studio.You’ll watch as history teacher Jason Hollingshead uses interactive games on his electronic “smart board” to bring the civil rights movement to life. You’ll see 11th graders in a chemistry lab huddled around unscratched countertops with gleaming chrome fixtures. You’ll spy seniors eating lunch in a rose garden, under a canopy of magnolias. (How idyllic. I'm sure it's beautiful. But have test scores improved? What about graduation rates? Drop out rates? School crime?)
Since the modernization, vandalism has virtually ceased and attendance has inched up. Eightynine percent of seniors had passed the California High School Exit Exam by this past March, compared with 82 percent in 2011. Teachers say students have grown more engaged. “If you feel valued, it inspires you to pay more attention and work harder,” Carranza says.
THE PROBLEMS facing America’s school buildings are not always visible ones. Poor ventilation causes asthma, headaches, fatigue, and nausea, making it harder to concentrate and boosting absenteeism. Hot and cold classrooms, external noise, and insufficient light all undermine teaching. “We know that when the heat gets up to 78, 80 degrees, the learning curve drops precipitously,” says Earthman. “When a student can’t see the writing surface, when a student can’t hear the teacher, there is a measurable effect.”
Earthman, who has studied the link between infrastructure and student performance since 1993, has found that children attending schools in subpar condition score up to 10 percentile points lower on standardized tests, even after controlling for poverty. Outmoded facilities not only inhibit learning but also drive away good teachers, who would rather work in schools where the thermostats function and the air doesn’t sicken them.
Of course, there are beautifully designed schools that boast every amenity a student could desire, notes Mary Filardo, director of the 21st Century School Fund. But, not surprisingly, they tend to be located in the most affluent communities. Elsewhere—in cities, older suburbs, and rural areas—many schools remain “unhealthy, unsafe, depressing places,” she says. (Now for a little guilt trip. My, we can't have such unfairness! That's what's causing the problem, the rich are oppressing the poor!
See, I can spout the mindless leftist rhetoric just as easily. When you don't have to think, things like that are much easier.)
Take a look across the United States and it becomes obvious that when it comes to infrastructure, equality in education remains an unrealized ideal. When it rains in Reading, Pa., “we have classrooms in which there is actually a waterfall coming over the lights,” (I would say these administrators are criminally complicit in endangering students)
says Bryan Sanguinito, president of the Reading Education Association. At Youth’s Benefit Elementary School in Fallston, Md., some water fountains are off-limits because of lead in the plumbing. In Beloit, Wis.,“we’ve shut down certain wings of buildings [because] of air-quality issues,” says superintendent Steve McNeal. Geronimo Road Elementary School, on Oklahoma’s Fort Sill military base, has termite-ridden walls and ceiling tiles that dangle “by threads of glue,” according to the Center for Public Integrity. The Arizona Republic recently revealed that the school fire alarm at Arizona’s Fredonia High can’t be heard in certain classrooms. And the faulty airconditioning at J.D. Smith Middle School in North Las Vegas sometimes forces administrators to cool off students by distributing ice pops, reports The Las Vegas Sun.
Much of the disparity (There's that eeeevil unfairness that some schools have more money than others. It isn't fair!)
between school districts is a function of how educational facilities are funded. It’s typically a local responsibility, and communities have wildly varying tax bases; those with the highest household incomes spend almost three times as much on school construction as the poorest ones.
Struggling districts know they need better buildings. But their leaders say they can’t fix what they can’t afford to, particularly in a stalled economy. (Stalled economy? These buildings have been decaying for decades. Why weren't these problems addressed when they were small? I thought the Clinton economy was wonderful. What happened to these schools when there was all the prosperity?
I would suggest that the Left needs decaying schools for 1) an excuse to get taxpayers to pony up even more dough, and 2) an excuse for inner city crime, poverty, and illiteracy.)
According to state and local authorities, the aging schools in New Bedford, Mass.—some more than a century old—have suffered mold infestation and registered alarming carbon dioxide levels. Many have “no facilities for computer labs, for music, for special needs,” says school committee member John Fletcher. (Oh, the horror! No computer labs? Why, we can't teach without computers!)
But with state funding slashed, the district has laid off most of its custodial staff and put building improvements on hold to avoid massive teacher cuts. “Keeping class size small is the first priority,” Fletcher says. (In other words, teachers unions have forced down class sizes, which means more teachers are needed, and the money that would have been spent on facilities maintenance now goes to teachers' salaries and benefits. Rather than properly budget for expenses, school districts simply neglected building maintenance. This is financial mismanagement.)
Until state and federal governments fill the gap, inequalities will persist. (In other words, no one should have a nicer school than another. Every school must have the best of the best in order to be "fair." And it's up to government to solve the problem, the problem it has created, and is perpetuating. These are government-built schools, paid for by taxpayers, that have been allowed to fall apart. And now taxpayers have to foot the bill yet again to pay for the intentional destruction of school facilities.)
Filardo, who thinks about these issues full time in her post at the 21st Century School Fund, knows the obstacles are huge. “But the American people, in their communities, have been willing to tackle major initiatives,” Filardo says. She is encouraged by districts like Santa Ana that have found creative solutions despite their modest means....
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